Leni and the disconnect of the opposition

IT WAS a relationship built and broken later through phone calls and texts. That’s how modern, and disconnected, the Robredo-Duterte relationship is.

Last July, Leni Robredo got a call from Duterte to be part of his cabinet, which she said yes. But five months later, she got a text that she is no longer needed to join cabinet meetings. In other words, it’s over.

But the disconnect goes beyond the text messages. If you read Robredo’s statement on her resignation, you can sense this disconnect was due to politics. How she was kept out from decision making, and how the reduction of the budget in her department in social housing makes it difficult to perform her duties.

There are also other things to factor in that lead to the disconnect. That she is part of the opposition party to Duterte. There is also the president’s go signal for the hero’s burial of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos as political support. And later on, there is her tweet of a plot “to steal the vicepresidency” referring to Bongbong Marcos’electoral protest.

It’a strange thing our politics is. We have been electing a president and a vice president that don’t belong to the same party. There’s Ramos-Estrada in 1992, Estrada-Arroyo in 1998, and Aquino-Binay in 2010. This makes strange bedfellows in the Cabinet, and the Veep is always the outsider doing his or her thing like building capital for the next political step which is to become the president.

A battle-line now is shaping up with an opposition led by Robredo. She said she will function as a critic to Duterte’s policies: the war on drugs, the Marcos’burial, and other things.

While an opposition is healthy for democracy, the state of the opposition is unhealthy. If the opposition now is the Liberal Party in which Leni is part of, it is wrecked with a legacy of failures from the previous Noynoy Aquino presidency. There’s Yolanda and Pablo, Mamasapano, traffic, laglagbala, and failed peace talks. Currently, LP-member Senator de Lima is tangled in confessions linked to drugs and cor r upt i on.

Yes, there are sectors and people critical to Duterte’s administration, but the question is, would they rally to Leni? Is she the one who can lead that charge?

Speaking of opposition, the constant critic of the government, the Left-led by Makabayan in Congress is working on a “principled alliance” with Duterte on issues like peace talks and social and economic reforms.

Two activists remain in the cabinet, social welfare secretary Judy Taguiwalo and agrarian reform secretary Rafael “Paeng” Mariano, the former representative of Anak Pawis par t yl i st .

The Left also stands opposed too to the Marcos’burial. Taguiwalo, in particular, has been vocal on issues such as the war on drugs targeting minors. The difference between her and Leni is that she is working within and engaging the issues inside.

We are now in a strange new direction, where an opposition is doubtful to draw a crowd against Duterte, and the Left with a bigger mass-base

and influence is engaging the government to go on a good direction.

There are still more shifts in our political atmosphere coming next year. Let’s see how long the Left will hold in this alliance. But for now it is time to choose, Left of Leni? Work within or work without?